On Sep 7, 2010, at 9:44 PM, Alan W. Irwin wrote: > Hi Jerry: > > On 2010-09-07 19:49-0700 Jerry wrote: > >> >> User programs that previously relied on the built-in declarations of >> Vector and Matrix _might_ now have a problem. > > From my tests, I don't think the standard Ada (both thin and thick) > examples are affected by this. Do those examples do something special > to avoid the problem? If so, perhaps the documentation should > advertise what that is (if it doesn't do that now). > > Alan > __________________________
No, they don't do anything special. All they do is reference the Vector and Matrix declarations which are in PLplot_auxiliary.ads and look like this: type Real_Vector is array (Integer range <>) of Long_Float; type Real_Matrix is array (Integer range <>, Integer range <>) of Long_Float; These are "open arrays" or in Ada, unconstrained arrays, indicated by <> instead of actual index ranges such as 3..7. The examples and any user program need only to reference the package which contains these. In Ada, this looks like with PLplot_Auxiliary; (and optionally,) use PLplot_Auxiliary; The examples or user program then needs to declare variables of these types with actual bounds specified. For example, in x01a.adb, there is this: xs, ys : Real_Vector (0 .. 5); but this is SOP for Ada. If, when the user begins writing his/her program and (1) knows that there will no use of the Ada 2005 numerical BLAS-LAPACK vector-matrix stuff (eigenthings, solvers, etc.) and (2) plans on using PLplot, then the Ada bindings will just work. This is how the Ada examples are written. However, if the user either (a) needs to use the numerical stuff in Ada or (b) begins writing the program using the "official" Ada declarations and realizes later that PLplot is needed, then he/she will need to either (*) comment two lines in PLplot_Auxiliary.adb and uncomment three lines, then recompile the Ada part and make sure the link to BLAS and LAPACK happens, or (+) insert an explicit type conversion when those "official" vectors and matrices are passed to PLplot. I have explained this in the documentation pretty much like this. By the way, this "easy switching" of declaration styles is the only remaining reason for keeping PLplot_Auxiliary.ad[bs] (some PLplot- specific utilities notwithstanding). I could eliminate it for all of Ada in PLplot but then it obscures how to do the "switch." It's a little ugly. I suppose other languages would do this with compiler pragmas but Ada does not have them--apparently someone thought they are unsafe. Jerry ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This SF.net Dev2Dev email is sponsored by: Show off your parallel programming skills. Enter the Intel(R) Threading Challenge 2010. http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-thread-sfd _______________________________________________ Plplot-devel mailing list Plplot-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/plplot-devel
